Jack Bass, Accounting Professor

1. I don’t think that Jack Bass “entrapped” his students; it just was an excuse for covering the guilty of cheating on the exam for students. Those students should know that cheating on the exam wasn’t fair for any other students who were be honest during the exam and result a failing grade which will be entered and averaged into the final semester grade or get a “F” in the courses that depends on college’s protocol.

2. All students cheating on the second exam should be punished equally no matter whether they reported Scantron errors on the first exam or not. Professor Bass didn’t have any evidence showing that students who had improperly changed answers on the second exam were the students reporting Scantron errors on the first exam. If Bass doubted that students changed incorrect answers to correct answers after returning the Scatrons, those students would argue against Professor Bass’ doubt that the Scantron machine incorrectly graded?

3. Students received punishment regardless of how much incorrect answers were changed by students, because cheating was cheating. The degree of cheating behavior is the determination of degree of punishment other than the quantity of changed incorrect answers. The cheating behavior in this case wasn’t severe that compared to cheating with telecom instruments and asking someone else to take the exam for all the students involved in the cheating incident, so they should receive same degree of punishment.

4. The decision to allow D.R. to simply withdraw from the accounting course wasn’t proper and fair. Comparing the Scantron returned by D.R. and the copy of his Scantron, he did change two answers on his Scabtron which did prove that he was cheating on the second exam, so he should accept the same sanction letter as other students who were involved in the incident other than withdraw from the course without an sanction letter; no exception for him. He said Professor Bass instructed the students to change the wrong answer, but it sounded illogical because it violated Professor Bass’s intention that protect the integrity of the grades that he assigned in his course. If I were the dean of students or Professor Bass, I would suggest the chancellor that D.R. should receive severe punishment, like the sanction letter wouldn’t be remove from his file following within three semesters even if he were not charged with any other incidents of academic dishonesty.